All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
ROOMS THAT DREAM:
APT. 36
As soon as you enter Apt. 36, you know that you are at the bottom of the pecking order, and it is no surprise that you only receive the smallest kernels of favor from the dominant hen. You want to move up in the hierarchy, so you strut like the dominant hen and cluck like the dominant hen and peck like the dominant hen at the other chickens. You fall asleep happy, believing that you have moved up somewhat in the hierarchical order. The next day, you wake up and experience something more akin to herd mentality. You must follow every move that the dominant cow makes and chew on the grass if the dominant cow is grazing and plop down in the shade if the dominant cow is resting and stampede if the dominant cow runs, always conforming with the leader like all the other members of the herd as if your survival depends on it. The next day you wake up and discover that you must have somehow impressed everyone, for you are now the leader of the pack. Everyone tries to act like you and follow your lead. If one member challenges your authority, you snarl and growl and yip and howl at him, and if he doesn't back down, you bite him over and over and draw blood until he finally limps away, whimpering. You lead the pack on the hunt and are always the first to start ripping apart the prey. You fall asleep feeling like you are a great leader but wake up the next day and sense that something has changed--as if you are on a wheel that always keeps turning and now you are no longer at the top. You discover that for some reason you are no longer the dominant member of the pack. You have fallen out of favor with the new leader, and the other members of the pack nip at you and growl at you as you pass by. You must have failed some challenge, so you accept your fate. You fall asleep realizing that the pressure of being the leader of the pack might have been a little too much for you anyway. You wake up the next day and discover that you are no longer a member of the group. The people in the group whisper behind your back and dash away from you, and soon you suspect that the leader has committed some heinous act and that he is spreading horrible lies about you, and the underlings are perpetuating the lies to gain favor both with the leader and the other dominant members of the group. Suddenly you remember that you told the truth about him. You see the underlings smile as the leader provides them with glowing letters of recommendation and as he makes sure they obtain permanent jobs and promotions. As you lose confidence in yourself, you doubt whether you should ever do the right thing again. As you fall asleep you wonder if this is the moment you can escape from the wheel or if the wheel will just keep turning with you clinging to it.
(You realize that you are still on the right path because you find a story by Justin C. in the corner....)
PENDULUM DREAMS:
OLD STORY, NEW STORY
Nine of Swords:
Mars in Gemini
Nonlocal consciousness sometimes reveals more than harmony and light: occasionally it reveals that some horror is about to happen. As I hung out in the peaceful river canyon, the Ten of Swords was haunting me. The Ten of Swords depicts an orchestrated attack by a group on one person. Being in a group can be a fun, uplifting, and enlightening experience, of course, but too often groups form a kind of pack mentality that manifests as a rigid hierarchy, with a leader at the top and underlings below. To fit in at work or church or school, indeed to fit in to many kinds of groups, you often must conform to the group mind, which includes its beliefs and attitudes and its subtle energetic frequencies. A wolf pack would not accept a stray dog as one of its members; in human society, conformity is a bit more complex. In other words, members of the human pack subconsciously sense the subtle vibrations of other individuals. You have to look and think and act like the other members of the group, especially its leaders, but you also have to tune to the group's dominant subtle energies. If a person is different in some way, even in spiritual frequency, the group is unlikely to accept that person for long. Let's say, for instance, you are struggling to keep a job where everyone is obsessed with making money without any concerns about the moral implications of their actions, and you are a political activist concerned about the environment and social justice and consumer safety. Or you are a mystic who regularly performs rituals to transform negative energies into harmony, and in the process, you manifest the subtle energies of the Christ-force--the members of the pack will probably reject you even though you strive to look and act and think like other successful members of the group. Even though it's not generally understood, people have a sixth sense about the energetic frequency and motivation of others.
Pack members tend not to approve of others who are different on a spiritual, intellectual, emotional, or physical level. Pack members judge others and "objectify" them, striving to make sure that others in the pack don't undermine their personal status or well-being, a mental practice that primarily occurs because of the survival instinct. Pack mentality rarely concerns itself with the inner complexity and well-being of others; it is primarily concerned with maintaining order within the pack. The group mind adopts "traditions" and core attitudes and is often quick to reject any individual who expresses himself in ways that might be considered new, unfamiliar, or unaligned with their basic beliefs. Political activists, mystics, free thinkers, artists, writers, and composers often express themselves in unusual and unfamiliar and untraditional ways, which tends to threaten pack mentality. For instance, because I am a political activist, a mystic, and a free thinker who weaves personal, political, and spiritual themes together as well as original artwork and music in a blog instead of publishing in magazines or publishing books, I doubt that I would be allowed to linger long in the hallowed halls of any university. Nontraditional approaches, creativity, passion, and spirituality tend to disturb the pack mind, which demands conformity.
A few days after I returned home from my trip to the river canyon, a bizarre phenomenon began occurring: People in Fresno, CA, if they knew me at all, would flee from me in absolute terror. It would have been amusing if it hadn't been so disconcerting. Perhaps truth scares the hell out of people in Fresno, or what is more likely, someone in a group with a strong pack mentality was spreading lies about me. I had told the truth about a a couple of hypocritical and corrupt individuals, as well as the truth about my own spiritual and political experiences, but I had never in my life threatened anyone. In my mind's eye, I kept picturing someone using a voice modulator and threatening to harm people over the phone while pretending to be me. In grocery stores and bookstores, old acquaintances kept dashing away from me in a panic. One woman strolled by me and my wife and blurted out, "Eek!" One man even shadowed me out to the parking lot to see if I had damaged his car, which I found disturbing because I had once respected the man's intelligence and because I have never once even thought about harming anyone else's property. What these terrified people were showing me was that some pack or some individual, a sociopath perhaps, had enough influence to turn me into an outcast and ruin my well-being within the community. These terrified people were showing me that I would never be accepted in my community as a writer, composer, artist, political activist, teacher, spiritual healer and mystic, no matter how much good I had done or might have done for my community. These terrified people were revealing that all my work, including eight grueling years of college, had been a waste of time, an illusion.
This fear reveals a great deal about how people with power can abuse anyone who tells the truth or anyone who is different. One on level, at least, it suggests that if you are ethical, creative, or spiritual, finding a more tolerant community should be a top priority....
Why target a person who fights for truth, beauty, and justice instead of targeting the unethical and the corrupt? The greed of the super-rich is totally out of control. To continue making huge profits, fossil fuel companies will pollute the environment and release greenhouse gases until the crack of doom, destroying organized human existence and the planet in the process because they can: the system allows them to buy off politicians on both sides of the aisle with dark money. The masters of war continue to support politicians who back conflict in distant lands because war channels trillions of tax-payer dollars, much of it unaccounted for, away from social programs and into corporate coffers. And with each war, we edge closer to nuclear annihilation. Humanity is ninety seconds from midnight on the doomsday clock. Why destroy the lives of creative, ethical, spiritual people who care about the world instead of holding despoilers and mass murderers accountable?
Pack mentality reigns in many arenas of American life, especially in politics and academia and the business world. If the leader of the pack is blatantly hypocritical or commits a heinous act, the subordinates will often stand by the leader no matter how unethical or abhorrent the behavior--the underlings know that, by supporting the leader, they can remain in the leader's good graces and also gain favor from other dominant pack members. In academia and the business world especially, an ambitious underling can benefit immensely by supporting an unethical pack leader; for instance, the underling might receive glowing letters of recommendation, a permanent job, or a promotion. If you challenge a leader on moral grounds, say, by telling the truth about the leader's misconduct, the underlings know it's in their best interests to attack you, sometimes in extremely vicious ways. The pack can continue for years to attack an ethical person who did the right thing, and even if that ethical person is eventually vindicated, the members of the pack often avoid having anything to do with him, perhaps out of shame or guilt or because the underlings know that the leaders will never let him back into the pack. Truth often ends up being anathema to the pack mentality, so the members of the pack often double or triple down on their lies, knowing that if they tell the lies often enough, enough people will believe them. Donald Trump is just one example of what happens all to often in this society.
In this country, the populace is constantly fed lies through all of our media devices. People shamelessly lie to sell a product even if it is harmful. Politicians and pundits lie about the economy and climate disruption and democracy and poverty and health crises and the educational system and the justice system and often refuse to entertain any reasonable alternatives for solving challenging problems—people lie, in fact, about any issue where the elites, the leaders of the pack, have a strong vested interest in staying on top by maintaining the status quo. (And the vested interests are becoming fewer as the wealth becomes more concentrated: Just a handful of men now own half of the world’s wealth, according to Oxfam International (1).) Underlings will often unquestioningly believe the pack leader: they must do so to remain a member of the pack. Pack mentality often resembles a kind of mob mentality, which can cause great harm to those who are different or who don't toe the line. The pack objectifies you, unconcerned about who you are as a multidimensional human being, and the pack is often quite effective at punishing you socially for who you really are so that you lose confidence in yourself and feel regret about doing what is right. But I assure you: if you don't focus on truth and strive to do the right thing for the highest possible good, you cannot progress on any spiritual path.
That day years ago in the tranquility of the river canyon, fear and despair surfaced into my conscious mind as I sensed through nonlocal consciousness the subtle currents of thought and emotion in other people. Some part of my psyche that transcends space and time was showing me that whatever people were actually doing miles away was turning me into the figure in the Ten of Swords. It eventually hit me as I sat on the pounding stone that I was for some reason the victim of pack mentality. I discovered that was indeed the case after I returned home and people began dashing away from me in a panic.
The most insidious type of pack mentality is black magic, which recently was far more prevalent than most people might imagine. Black magic attracts people who feel alone and vulnerable and disenfranchised: the practice of black magic makes them a member of a pack and gives them a kind of power that the vast majority of people can't even imagine or believe. This society has conditioned people to think that nothing exists beyond "local" reality, in other words, beyond the specific conditions of physical life within the known dimensions of time and space. Most people would not believe, even if they were being attacked by a demon, that other dimensions and other beings exist in energy frequencies beyond our limited physical senses. Many people fear that coworkers and friends and family would ostracize them if they even mentioned that they have experienced the paranormal.
Practitioners of black magic are the wolves on the spiritual path. Black magic is all about power, the power to destroy enemies and competitors without them being able to do or say anything about it. Black magic can often be found where people struggle for power, such as in business, academia, and politics. The people at the greatest disadvantage and most at risk are atheists, agnostics, existentialists, skeptical intellectuals--anyone, really, who doesn't believe in a spiritual dimension. People locked in local consciousness are easy targets and usually don't have a clue about what is happening to them. (Those who function at a high spiritual frequency are a threat to practitioners of black magic, so beware: if you are spiritually inclined, it is in your best interests to perform spiritual practices that neutralize dark forces.)
I was increasingly attacked by dark forces before the pandemic began; in the year before the pandemic, I even mentioned to a few people that evil was rising. Then, after the pandemic began, I was attacked twice a day by dark forces, in the morning and at night. During the crisis, people have become more and more vulnerable economically and emotionally and spiritually when the economy tanked and the government failed to take effective measures to contain the virus. Oligarchs have taken measures in recent years to overturn democracy in order to establish fascist, authoritarian rule. The shell of a democracy, which conceals corporate tyranny, is cracking in many areas. People are being hammered by inflation and debt and the rise of interest rates while a handful of oligarchs grow wealthier and wealthier. No one, to my knowledge, has acknowledged the spiritual dimension of the current crises that are breaking apart the foundation of our society.
The real question is this: what can we do when we are individually or collectively threatened spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically? The threat could originate with coworkers or a gaggle of professors in the humanities department of a college or a coven of witches or members of a church or a pack of oligarchs. Pack mentality is all about power. Surviving the rampant abuses of power comes down to our ability to purify ourselves and perform spiritual practices that neutralize dark forces to create balance and transform negativity into harmony.
Purification is a necessary first step in just about every authentic spiritual tradition. The following is a description of a mental purification process that continues to have a profound effect on my life.
In this process, you meditate and mentally cleanse each major wheel of energy, or chakra, with an imaginary white cloth and clear water. The chakras are energy centers within your aura, which is the subtle energy sheath that surrounds your physical body. The primary chakras correspond to the spine and usually turn clock-wise. (If you hold a crude pendulum made from a paperclip and a thread over a chakra, such as the stomach or heart center, after a few seconds the paperclip will start spinning around.) Within the aura, the chakras extend outward into the astral, mental and spiritual levels. In fact, you can mentally tell the pendulum to spin only in the astral or mental or spiritual level, and the chakra usually will respond to the command, just like a hand or arm or leg responds to thought. The lower chakras are associated with an individual’s preservation instincts, sex drive, and personal power; the higher ones are linked with communication, imagination, and spiritual awareness. The heart center, besides being the center of sympathy and love, links the lower centers related to the physical realm with the higher centers related to the spiritual levels.
Over the years, negative energies from traumas and abuse and social conditioning accumulate in the energy centers, blocking the flow of the life-force. Whatever appears negative in each chakra, you mentally wipe clean with the cloth. Sometimes you will have to continue wiping the chakra repeatedly until it remains clear of negativity. Sometimes you will find something that mentally you will need to pull out of the chakra. You might discover a message of some kind. Whatever you find, ask yourself what it means to you. Usually your higher self will immediately communicate its significance to your conscious mind.
Start with the root chakra, which is between the anus and the genitals. The chakras have more than one color, but the subconscious mind has no trouble identifying one basic color with each chakra. So begin by visualizing the root chakra as a turning, red martini glass or a red wheel. Imagine wiping it out with a damp, white cloth.
Make a mental note of whatever you encounter within each chakra. Your subconscious mind is communicating with your conscious mind. The next chakra, in the general area of the navel, is orange. Again, envision the chakra as a turning glass or wheel. Wipe out any impurities. Repeat the same process for the solar plexus chakra (between the navel and the heart), which is yellow. Keep cleansing yourself mentally as you meditate, one by one until you purify each chakra:
The heart chakra is green.
The throat chakra, blue.
The third-eye chakra (middle of forehead): violet.
The crown chakra (top of head): brilliant white.
This process will not always be easy and might take weeks or months. You might have to face thorny or repressed aspects of the self. You might ‘see’ that your energy system is out of balance or blocked in some way. You might remember unpleasant experiences or people from your past, but remember also that you are only judging yourself now to identify what interferes with your growth. The chakras of the average person contain a fair share of junk, trash, guilt, shame, blindfolds, black streaks and blots, and even some monsters. Whatever you cannot wipe clean, you will mentally burn away or drain from a hole in your back or your feet to be purified by the fire under the earth's surface.
You may find that forgiveness is an important aspect of the cleansing process. Forgive everyone who has harmed you. You can imagine a cup in front of you on a table and envision negative emotions leaving your body and going into the cup, where they drain into the earth. If you feel that you need to be forgiven, call the negative energy to you from the person that you harmed, channeling it into the cup and draining it also into the earth. See it purified by the magma below the earth's surface.
You will know when you are done with the purification process, but occasionally you might need to cleanse one or more of your chakras due to the negativity surrounding us in the world. It is possible when you are done that you will begin to have visions of spiritual symbols and hear wise voices and experience nonlocal consciousness often because you have cleared the way for the higher self to communicate with your conscious mind. You will find that your mind, freed of negativity, is extremely powerful.
You are light, and you ‘see’ the light in everything and everyone. If you feel negative emotions again because of some event in your life, which is inevitable, don't judge yourself critically. Remember that you can always cleanse yourself again.
After I completed my mental purification process and established regular spiritual practices, I realized that my old story was dying. It was never big enough for me anyway. The challenge, of course, is creating a new story that is large enough to encompass who you really are: a personal energy field embedded within a Universal Energy Field, a facet of Universal Consciousness. Your consciousness is so powerful that you can transcend space and time.
It also becomes clear that collectively we are reaching a point where humanity is destroying the planet and itself: Purification and renewal are essential in this time of crisis.
I finally understood that I had envisioned the Ten of Swords in my mind's eye because of The Sun in Gemini, the decan correspondences of the card. In other words, behind the blackness in the Ten of Swords is The Sun, which on the Tree of Life is associated with the sphere of healing and equilibrium, the Christ-center, known as Tiphareth (Beauty). My soul was revealing that I needed to invoke the healing energies of the Source of all Creation, the Sun behind the sun. My new story focuses on invoking powers of harmony and letting go of illusions and negativity and honoring the embeddedness of my personal consciousness within Universal Consciousness.
The Lovers: Gemini
In my old story, I focused on the negative. The "negativity bias" refers to the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature, such as unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions and harmful or traumatic events, have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than do neutral or positive things. In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative (2). Through the process of mental purification I have overcome this bias. I focus on harmony and beauty and don't dwell on the negative.
My spirituality grew out of suffering, and like many people in this society, I have struggled with negativity. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) is a ritual that keeps me balanced and positive despite adverse circumstances. It also has protected me from dark forces many times. At one period in my life, for instance, when I was under attack by a powerful malicious spirit that could manifest in a frequency very close to the material realm and attack me physically (by shaking me violently and holding me down and choking me, for instance,) I began using the LBRP regularly. One night, as I was in the middle of the banishing ritual, I heard what sounded like a cross between a shriek and a howl as well as a loud boom, almost like a sonic boom, on the roof above me. At that moment the air outside was still and no airplanes were flying over the house. That malicious entity has not bothered me since. Another time, I was traveling alone and discovered a streak of blood on the bathroom wall in my motel room. I tried to wipe it away but without much success. That night I felt oppressed by a menacing presence as I was getting ready for bed. I immediately performed the LBRP, and just as I was finishing the ritual, I heard a bone-chilling shriek and a tremendous bang in the bathroom. I looked in the bathroom and found no one, and I knew no one was occupying the room next to mine. The family that ran the motel were foreigners who were obviously quite familiar with the spiritual dimension. Because of my daily spiritual practices, I am no longer bothered by dark forces, and I rarely experience any negativity.
In my daily ritual, I perform the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram (SIRP). Within this ritual, I move in consciousness from the archetypal dimension known as Yesod to the state of being known as Tiphareth, the Emanation of the Sun, the Christ Center, a shift that in itself is profoundly purifying. The SIRP, however, can be dangerous in the hands of neophytes because it enables a person to invoke powerful cosmic forces. I should warn you: When you "contact" a Sephira, or Emanation, on the Tree of Life, or the Archangel or God associated with it, the entire spectrum of energy, from the positive to the negative pole, pours into your soul. For instance, with Mars, who represents Geburah, the fifth Emanation on the Tree of Life, you access the positive virtues of strength, courage, and discipline--as well as its vices at the negative end of the spectrum: cruelty and destructiveness. If you are unable to polarize from the negative energies to the ideal energies within the spectrum, the vice of the Emanation can dominate your personality. Also, it is always possible that dark forces might notice that you are becoming more open and sensitive to the spiritual dimension and try to discourage you by wreaking havoc in your life. Occult work takes courage, commitment, and knowledge. Once you get on that path, you must perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram at least twice every day, once in the morning and once at night.
Regular mental purification, together with banishing and invoking rituals, enable you to live an abundant spiritual life free of negativity even if people with a pack mentality are targeting you, and these spiritual practices also open up the dimensions of Universal Consciousness in a way that most people can't even imagine possible. As the magician harmonizes the cosmic forces within himself, he experiences a profound spiritual transformation that is extremely positive for himself and those around him. Even a small group of dedicated people who mentally purify themselves and transform negativity into harmony can have a profoundly transformative and positive effect on the world as a whole.
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